Respite
by MacsLady
Summary: After working a particularly difficult case, Mac finds himself questioning the validity of his job, but Claire is there to support him.   DISCLAIMER: All CSI: NY characters are the property of the writers and CBS. Thanks to RW for medic help.


Respite

Mac closed his eyes as he rested his head against the elevator wall. It wasn't exactly late, just past 9pm, but he was shattered. He'd been at work since 6am, and hadn't eaten since that morning, unless coffee counted as food. His head throbbed, his throat was scratchy and dry, his eyes burned with tiredness. He was aware of the tension in his whole body, particularly his shoulders and arms, from clenching his fists underneath the interrogation table so he wouldn't go across the table and beat Mitch Johnson senseless. Mac had barely been able to rein in his fury and disgust at the man sitting opposite them.

Even though he and Aidan had closed a case, Mac felt very little satisfaction with this one. He just felt angry and sad and tired, not just physically, but emotionally, sick of the whole damn world which allowed scumbags like Johnson to exist.

He saw images from the case flash before his eyes. The still, lifeless body of eight-year old Jesse Johnson. The actual sight of the body at the scene had been bad enough. The dried blood in the boy's hair from the wound to his head. A brief examination of the small boy's body at the scene had revealed bruises on his upper arms. Bruises not from the kid bumping into a sharp corner of a counter while playing at home, or from a fall in the school playground, but bruises in the shape of fingers and hands that encircled the boy's entire upper arm. Big fingers, big hands. As if someone had grabbed him, digging their fingers in viciously. The bruises varied in colour from varying degrees of purple to a yellow-brownish colour indicating older trauma, the fresher ones overlapping the old, indicating that the boy had been grabbed this way repeatedly.

When Dr Giles had called Mac over after completing his autopsy, however, it had been even worse.

'I tell you, Mac, this child has been suffering abuse for some time. He has multiple bruises, and as you noted at the scene, they're not from your regular childhood mishaps.'

'The shape,' Mac had said, 'Fingers, hands...' he swallowed hard, unable to continue.

Giles looked every bit as disgusted as Mac felt.

'Indicating, as you suspect, by his being grabbed, hard, and repeatedly. There's more, Mac.'

'Tell me,' Mac said, feeling an uncontrollable rage and grief building inside him. He would *find* who did this, and then he would...

Dr Giles gently turned the small boy onto his side, and pulled down the sheet covering his lower half so Mac could see his lower back and buttocks. Mac swore under his breath, and Giles just nodded.

'See these marks here, on his lower back? You notice the distinctive oval sort of shape. These were likely made by a curled-up belt. And here, you can see the imprint of a buckle. And these longer, linear streaks across his lower back and his thighs? Those are likely from a switch of some kind. The sheer amount of these bruises, and their symmetrical nature - especially the ones that I strongly suspect are from the switch, strongly suggest child abuse, Mac. Normally kids get bruises on bony areas, and they're more random, you know, knees, elbows, foreheads, all those places kids *normally* hurt themselves.'

'There are so many of them,' Mac said, unable to stop looking at Jesse's small back. Like the contusions and on his arms, the ones on his back were in various stages of healing. There were, as Giles pointed out, also white scars criss-crossing the boy's lower back, indicating much older injuries where whatever had been used to hit him had cut the skin.

'It gets worse, I'm afraid,' Dr Giles said softly. 'Are you sure you...'

Mac just nodded. He actually wanted to throw up. He actually wanted to hit something, ideally the person responsible for doing this to Jesse.

Giles put up some x-ray images on the light box on the wall.

'Here you can see fractures to both his arms. Some are fresh, from the attack that led to his death, but others, as you can see from the varying amounts of callus, are from older injuries. He has several spiral-type fractures which usually indicate twisting or pulling of the limb. He's also had a broken wrist at some point, again that could be caused by someone pulling or twisting his arm violently. Then there are his ribs. Again, you have the very fresh fractures from the final assault, and older ones.'

'What was the actual cause of death?' Mac asked swallowing hard and turning away from the images on the light box. He noticed his fists were clenched so hard that his fingernails were digging painfully into his palms. Mac welcomed the pain, it gave him something to focus on.

'It was the blunt force trauma to the head,' said Giles, 'but the sheer viciousness of the final assault caused internal bleeding that would have put him at serious risk.'

Mac nodded.

'The older injuries, they're in places not easily visible,' he said, hearing the barely controlled emotion in his voice, 'Places normally covered by clothing, the back, the buttocks, the legs, the upper arms...Whoever did this to him was clever. Only left marks where they'd be difficult to find.'

Giles nodded.

'It's difficult to tell with children, because they heal faster, but looking at these results, I'd say the abuse has been going on about three years, though you'd need to ask a paediatric radiologist to be more certain.' He paused, then, with a hard look in his eye Mac had never before seen in the mild-mannered doctor'I really hope you catch the person who did this, Mac,'

'Oh, we will,' Mac said, and felt the cold certainty rise within him.

Mac and Aidan had then visited the hospital and Jesse's school. An ER nurse had reported suspected abuse to the hospital's social worker when Jesse's stepfather had brought the boy in with a broken wrist and the x-ray had revealed other fractures. Upon mild questioning, the stepfather had become aggressive, and threatened to leave with the boy before he could receive treatment.

'What about Jesse himself?' Aidan asked the nurse.

'Wouldn't say a word except he broke his wrist playing.' the nurse said. 'I reported it to my supervisor straight away, and he told our social worker.'

The social worker had begun an investigation, and had reported the case to CPS after discovering from Jesse's medical file that he had been admitted at least twice before with similar suspicious fractures.

One of Jesse's teachers had also contacted CPS, concerned about Jesse's frequent absences from school, especially on days when physical education classes were due, and about the poor state of Jesse's clothing, and the boy's withdrawn nature in class.

'I suspected abuse,' she told Mac, 'But he's far from the only child we have concerns about here. We report many possible abuse cases to CPS, but they're overloaded as it is. I certainly didn't want to confront his stepfather about it. The one time I called to ask about Jesse's absences, he called me a 'fucking nosey bitch that should keep out of things that aren't my concern' - I've dealt with angry parents before, but him...' she shuddered. 'Let's just say I was scared of him, God knows how poor Jesse felt. I'm so sorry. I should have...I thought CPS would...' she had shaken her head in despair. 'Too much,' she said softly, 'I guess they just had too much to deal with.'

Mac had nodded silently, feeling that rage build inside him again, that sense of helplessness. This was a lower-income area of Queens, where domestic violence and child abuse cases were horrendously high. Despite the best efforts of the ER nurse, the teacher, and the people at CPS, Jesse's case had, like so many others, simply slipped through the cracks. It wasn't anyone's fault, it was just a fact of an overworked, overloaded system, one that had not been able to save young Jesse Johnson, that had been able to do anything until it was too late, far too late. Mac had left the school with the same sick feeling deep in his stomach, the same boiling rage making his entire body tense.

Given the evidence, Jesse's stepfather had been an obvious suspect. Mac and Aidan had arrested him, and the man had confessed almost instantly, in a way that suggested to Mac that he didn't feel sorry for what he'd done, didn't care about Jesse, but simply saw confessing as his best, or only, option.

Mac remembered the look on Mitch Johnson's face as he calmly described killing his stepson, as he said, coldly, 'the little brat wasn't even mine. The jury won't blame me. I only punished him when he acted out. Little brat deserved it, always spilling stuff and not listening to me and whining on. Ever since his mother died. I'd just had enough.'

Mac knew that Jesse's mother had died three years previously in a hit-and-run incident. The bastard must have started hurting Jesse almost immediately after his mother had died. The boy would only have been five years old. Mac felt nausea rise in him at the thought.

'You're lucky, Mr Johnson. I would give a year's pay for five minutes alone in this room with you, you fucking cowardly piece of shit. But you're not worth it. Maybe when you go to prison, someone bigger than you will give you a little taste of what you did to that child.'

'You've heard the stories, haven't you, Mitch, about what happens to men like you in prison?' Aidan added, looking just as sick, just as angry, as Mac felt.

Johnson remained silent, though suddenly he didn't look so calm. Barely able to hide the fury in his voice, Mac said to the waiting uniform cop,

'Get him out of here.'

Mac had left the precinct as soon as he could, deciding to leave the paperwork on the case until the next day. After making sure Aidan was as all right as it was possible to be, he had headed straight home, wanting nothing more than to be away from the precinct, away from the lab, away from his job, away from all of it.

'Fuck,' Mac swore under his breath, lightly banging his head against the wall, clenching his fists so hard his fingernails dug painfully into the flesh of his palms.

'Fuck,' he repeated.

The elevator bell dinged, and he opened his eyes and stepped out into the short eighth-floor hallway that led to his apartment. He wondered briefly whether Claire's meeting at the Trade Center was over yet, she had said it might go on till 9:30. A slight smile tugged at Mac's lips, as he thought that at least she would be home soon. He longed for her.

He unlocked the door of the apartment, and was surprised to step not into darkness but into the soft light coming from the lamp on the hall table. He closed and locked the door behind him, put his keys and gun in the drawer of the hall table, and stood still for a moment, taking in his surroundings. Soft jazz music was playing, and he could smell something delicious coming from the kitchen. Moments later, Claire came round the corner from the living room, and her eyes lit up as she smiled at him. Even now, 8 years into their marriage, his heart still skipped at beat at that smile. He felt some of the tension drain from him just at the sight of her.

'You're home,' Claire said as she walked towards him. She reached him, leaned up slightly, and kissed him. Mac closed his eyes and kissed her back, relishing in her closeness, the feel of her hand skimming up his arm, then to his shoulder, then his neck, then around to the back of his head as Claire pulled him closer, deeper into the kiss. He wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close to him, not wanting to let go, wanting to lose himself in her.

Slowly they ended the kiss and pulled slightly back from each other. Claire's warm blue eyes met his, and filled with concern.

'Mac, what is it? What's wrong?'

'We closed the Jesse Johnson case,' he said softly.

Claire's eyes searched his face. After a while she said,

'Come through to the living room, dinner's almost ready. You should eat, Mac.'

She leaned in again and placed a soft kiss first on his neck and then on his lips, running the back of her fingers down his cheek.

Mac felt so grateful, and loved his wife so much in that instant that he could never have put it into words.

What some people might have seen as her brushing off his problem, Mac recognised it for what it was. She was letting him know, without saying it, that she knew something was wrong, and that when he wanted to talk about it, she would be there to listen. She had never pressured him to talk about what haunted him, not even after he'd been injured during that final mission with his unit, the one that had gotten him his Silver Star. She just waited, quietly and patiently, for him to tell her whatever he felt able to, to share with her even a little of whatever was upsetting, haunting, dogging him. There were some things he could never fully open up to her about, that last mission being a case in point, and Claire seemed to accept this. Whether he shared the full extent of his darker thoughts or just a part of them with her, he always felt somewhat relieved afterwards. The memories and emotions didn't go away, but it felt good to share the responsibility of bearing them with her, or to at least get her perspective on whatever was bothering him, whether it was something as simple as an argument with an irritating, politicking superior, or something much more difficult and disturbing like the Johnson case. He wondered, as he followed her into the living room, what the hell he would do without her, and shuddered at the thought. There was little that scared Mac, he'd seen too much of the world, and of life, for that, but the thought of losing Claire sent sick, cold shivers of outright fear through every fibre of his being.

'Mac?' Claire said softly, and he realised she had turned to him, her eyes again full of worry.

'Nothing,' he said quickly, slumping down onto the couch, 'It's nothing,'

Claire raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, her look saying that she knew that was bullshit but she'd let it slide, and he smiled a little, genuinely amused. He could get nothing past her. If she hadn't gone into finance, she'd have made a damn good detective.

'Why don't you take a shower and change, and I'll be finished with dinner by the time you're done – it's ramen noodles with chicken.'

Mac smiled, his stomach rumbling. Claire's ramen noodles had to be one of his favourite meals of all time.

As he headed to the bathroom, Claire said,

'Oh, and Mac?'

He turned, raising his eyebrows in question.

Claire pointed at him.

'You owe me a cheeseburger,' she said.

Mac smiled again.

'Saturday night?' he said.

Claire grinned and nodded.

'You tell your boss that if he so much as considers asking you to work Saturday night, he'll have me to deal with. Tell him bad things happen when I'm denied my cheeseburger.'

Mac chuckled.

'I'll remember that,' he said.

Fifteen minutes later, Mac entered the kitchen. His hair was slightly damp from the shower, and he'd changed into his favourite pair of tatty, faded jeans and a black t-shirt. Though the shower had eased some of the tension from his stiff, aching muscles, he still had to push away thoughts of Jesse's tiny broken body, that look on Mitch Johnson's face...

Upon seeing the kitchen, however, it became, at least momentarily, easier to forget those dark thoughts. Mac smiled and chuckled.

The kitchen looked like a small bomb had hit it.

Pots and pans and various cooking utensils littered the worktops, along with a couple of empty packets of noodles, various bottles and jars of sauces and about three empty bottles of root beer, which was Claire's favourite soft drink.

'Need any help? Perhaps to find our worktops again?'

Claire turned from where she was emptying a pan of something onto two plates and stuck her tongue out at him.

'You can get a couple of beers from the fridge,' she said, 'I got some Japanese stuff to go with the meal.'

Mac took two bottles of beer with a name he'd never heard of, and popped off the caps. He took a sip. Not bad, he thought.

He set the beers on the table, and got knives and forks out of the drawer. Claire set two plates down on the table and sat down.

Mac sat opposite her at their tiny kitchen table and took a bite of the chicken ramen. He smiled at her.

'Delicious,' he said.

'Damn right it is,' Claire said.

'So, how was your meeting?' Mac asked.

Claire smiled, and as they ate regaled Mac with how boring the meeting had been, how the company's regional manager, who had come down from Albany had the irritating habit of saying 'um' throughout his speeches, Claire had counted almost one hundred uses of the word. Then she shared various bits of office gossip with him. Mac listened intently. He liked to hear about her day, about her perspective on her job and her colleagues; mostly he just liked moments like this, being with her and talking about things that were a million miles from the kind of things he dealt with on a daily basis.

'So, how's Aidan?' Claire asked.

'Right now, pissed off,' Mac said, 'But she's good. She's going to make an excellent CSI.'

Claire smiled.

'I like her,' she said, 'I'm glad you were working with her on this case.'

'Me too,' Mac said.

As they ate the rest of the meal, they talked about various things, colleagues, what was on the news, Claire pointed out that a new opera group was coming to town next month and would be doing various performances, giving Mac puppy eyes as she talked. Mac smiled slightly. He'd have to see if he could snag a night off and some tickets. He wasn't the biggest opera fan, but he loved to go with Claire.

After the meal, they washed the dishes and managed to restore the kitchen to some semblance of order, and then went into the living room. Mac sat on the couch and Claire snuggled up next to him. They watched some sitcom, Mac not really paying attention to the plot, just enjoying Claire's closeness, the feel of her head on his shoulder, her hand curled into his, her warmth, the scent of her perfume combined with spices from the cooking.

As the sitcom finished, the local news came on.

After a story about a local Republican politician who had adopted a strong anti-gay platform, and had been caught on camera engaging in sexual activities with male prostitutes , a Democrat politician who had been exposed as having links to a Neo Nazi group and had been sidelining money from fundraising to them, and a couple of other stories about local politics, the presenter said, 'And just before we go to Carlos for the weather, in other news, Child Protective Services in the city are reported to be suffering from staffing and financial problems that may affect their ability to serve the city's most vulnerable children, especially those in lower-income areas where reports of suspected abuse continue to rise. Now, over to you, Carlos.'

'Goddammit, no wonder he slipped through the cracks,' Mac muttered.

'You mean Jesse?' Claire said. Mac had told her the boy's name, and that he'd been beaten to death, but he'd kept the past abuse and the severity of the beating that killed Jesse from her.

Mac nodded.

'It was his stepfather. Mitch Johnson. He'd been hurting Jesse ever since his mother was killed, three years ago. Three fucking years, Claire. He killed him because the kid spilt a mug of cocoa on the new carpet.'

Claire was silent, but he felt her fingers running through his hair, then come to rest, warm and reassuring, on the back of his neck.

'He….when he told us why he did it, his face….it was completely passive. Like he was saying he took out the garbage or….or killed some bugs he found in his house, like he expected us to sympathise with what he did. He said he was 'punishing' Jesse. What kind of man does that to a child?'

Mac closed his eyes. He could feel his body shaking slightly.

Claire kissed his neck, then his cheek. She pulled his head to her shoulder and stroked his hair as he pressed his face into her neck.

They didn't speak for some time, until Claire said, gently,

'What else is bothering you, Mac? Apart from Johnson being an absolute complete bastard?'

She knew him so well, Mac thought. As horrible as this case had been, she knew he'd dealt with worse.

'It's….it's that that little boy was being hurt for three years by that bastard, and the ER nurse who saw him at the hospital tried to do something about it, tried to help, so did his teacher, but his case slipped through the cracks, and no one did anything until it was too late. No one stopped it.'

'You did. You stopped Mitch Johnson.' Claire said, still caressing the back of his neck.

'Too late. Jesse's dead.' Mac said.

'Mac, you do know there's nothing you could have done to prevent his death?'

'Oh, I know,' Mac said, 'That's the definition of my job, isn't it? That I arrive too late to prevent anyone's death?'

'No, the definition of your job is that you arrive in time to find out why people died,' Claire said, 'To give them and their families some kind of justice. That's what you told me when you told me you wanted to move over to CSI, Mac. Because of you, Mitch Johnson will go to prison, he won't be hurting any more children.'

Mac nodded.

'I know,' he said softly.

He did know. It was just that sometimes a particular case hit him hard, and he forgot. Claire was always there to remind him, though. Again he felt a rush of gratitude and love for her.

He lifted his head from her shoulder, and slid his hand into her hair, pulling her down into a deep, long kiss.

At last, the thoughts that had been tormenting him since he'd started working the case left him. He knew that they might well return to haunt him, but for now, at least, in Claire's arms, he found respite from the horrors of his job.

Peace.

The End.


End file.
